“Jay?” she said.
“Uh-huh.”
“Why do you want to ask me . . . oh! . . . his wife and the panty inspection.”
“Yep.”
“It happened in Paradise,” Rita said.
“Yep.”
“It’s been very embarrassing for Jay.”
“I’ll bet it has,” Jesse said.
“Are you still pursuing that?” Rita said.
“Sort of,” Jesse said. “Nobody much wants me to.”
“I’ll bet that bothers you a lot.”
Jesse shrugged.
“She violated those kids’ civil rights,” he said.
“I’m not sure that’s a legally sustainable argument,” Rita said.
“But she did.”
Rita smiled.
“And you want her to suffer some consequence,” she said.
“I do.”
“That would be you,” Rita said. “If it’s any consolation, Betsy Ingersoll is probably pretty embarrassed and wishes it hadn’t happened.”
“You know her?”
“Not really,” Rita said. “She attends a few of the hideous social events the firm occasionally runs, to prove how warm and fuzzy we are. She doesn’t get to say much.”
“Because Jay does most of the talking?”
“Nearly all,” Rita said.
“Okay,” Jesse said. “So tell me about her husband.”
“He was a hell of a lawyer,” Rita said.
“Was?”
“He probably still is,” Rita said. “But he doesn’t do much law anymore. Now he mostly manages the firm.”
“And the firm does well,” Jesse said.
“Very,” Rita said.
“He love his wife?” Jesse said.
“I don’t know.”
“Say he does,” Jesse said. “What else does he care about?”
“The firm.”
“Anything else? Kids?”
“No kids,” Rita said.
Rita finished her mojito. The bartender stepped promptly over.
“Another one, Ms. Fiore?” he said.
“Yes.”
“You, sir?” the bartender said. “Another beer?”
Jesse hesitated.
“Drink scotch, Jesse,” Rita said. “You look miserable.”
“Dewar’s and soda,” Jesse said to the bartender.
“Yes, sir.”
Rita said, “Have you met Jay?”
“He came by and leaned on me a little bit,” Jesse said.
“There are a lot of successful men like him,” Rita said. “After a while he starts to think that he can do whatever he decides to do and who’s to say nay.”
“You like him?” Jesse said.
“I admire him,” Rita said.
“Would you want to be married to him?” Jesse said.
“Oh, God, no,” Rita said.
“Because?”
“He’s totally self-absorbed, like so many of them.”
“He appears to be protecting his wife,” Jesse said.
“He’s protecting his reputation,” Rita said. “He doesn’t want to be seen as the husband of a dope.”
Jesse nodded.
“Why are you so interested?” Rita said. “You going to take him on?”
“Just gathering information,” Jesse said. “It’s always better to know stuff.”
“Well, he’s got a lot of chits that he can call in,” Rita said.
“I figured,” Jesse said.
“And he’ll call them if he needs to,” Rita said. “Don’t think he’s just another empty suit.”
“I won’t,” Jesse said.
“On the other hand,” Rita said, “neither are you.”
19
EVERYONE IN town seemed to be interested in, or amused by, or frightened about, the Peeping Tom at large. They knew about him. They didn’t know his name. But they knew what he did. The Night Hawk was scared . . . and titillated. He didn’t make his usual rounds this Wednesday night. Instead, in civilian dress, he strolled around Paradise, getting a look at the way things were. Shades were down all over town. It made him smile and stirred some sense of power in him. There seemed to be no unusual police activity. No stakeouts, no prowl cars driving slowly through the neighborhoods. The Night Hawk felt faintly disappointed that there was no more police activity. Wasn’t much of a police department, anyway. And it was encouraging that maybe he could still make his rounds. But not the same way. No one would be careless about their shades anymore . . . unless he found an exhibitionist. Wouldn’t that be a chuckle, he thought, for a voyeur and an exhibitionist to find each other. That was pretty unlikely, he knew. And he also knew without quite saying it that it wouldn’t work anyway. He didn’t want to keep seeing them. He just wanted to discover their secret and move on, and discover someone else’s. Maybe he should work another town for a while. Until things relaxed
. . . No. He didn’t want things to relax, and he preferred to discover his secrets in this town.
Where he lived. Where he knew most of the people. He stopped at the main-land end of the causeway to Paradise Neck, and leaned his forearms on the top of the wall, and looked at the ocean. It would be awfully frustrating, night after Wednesday night, to be unsuccessful. He hadn’t even seen a bedroom in the last two weeks. Everywhere the shades were drawn. . . .
There was no wind. The stars were high. The black ocean quietly murmured against the causeway. . . . He stared out to sea. . . . Okay, he thought. A new venue. More risk, yes. But the rewards were greater. He smiled to himself in the darkness. Like the stock market, he thought. Bigger the risk, bigger the reward.
20
SUIT CAME into Jesse’s office carrying a bag of doughnuts.
“Sex in Paradise,” he said. “The saga continues.”
He put the doughnuts down on the edge of Jesse’s desk. Jesse took one out of the bag and had a bite.
“I got an expense account to submit,” Suit said.
“For what?”
“I bought a few beers for Vinnie Basco,” Suit said. “And I took Debbie Basco and Kim Clark for lunch.”
“Give it to Molly,” Jesse said.
Suit nodded and drank some coffee.
“You learn anything?” Jesse said.
“I bought Vinnie a few beers at the Gray Gull. I told him I was curious about the Paradise Free Swingers. You know, not as a police officer, just as a guy used to play ball with him.”
“He buy that?” Jesse said.
“I don’t think so. But his real problem was that he was embarrassed about it. Said it was kind of creepy.”
“Then why does he do it?” Jesse said.
“My question exactly. And my answer to myself was”?Suit grinned?“the little woman.”
Jesse nodded and fished another doughnut out of the paper bag.
“So I say to Vinnie,” Suit went on, “ ‘Your wife likes it?’ And he says, ‘Yeah, it turns her on.’
And that’s about all I got out of that. Rest of the time we talked about how if I coulda held my block longer he’d have had more time to run the deep patterns. And I say to him if he were faster I wouldn’ta had to hold my blocks so long. And like that. I always thought Vinnie was an okay guy.”
“You talk with Chase,” Jesse said.
“Chase Clark? Naw, he’s an asshole. Always was. I couldn’t stand him, and he couldn’t stand me.”
“Hard to believe,” Jesse said.
“How I know he’s an asshole,” Suit said.
“So you went for the wives,” Jesse said.
“I did. Kim Clark was ahead of me in high school. I guess I had kind of a crush on her.”
“She show early promise?” Jesse said.
“As a future swinger?” Suit said. “No. But she did get knocked up. It’s why she’s got a thirteen-year-old daughter, and she’s only a few years older than me.”
“So maybe she did,” Jesse said. “How about Debbie?”
Suit grinned
.
“She showed a lot of promise,” he said. “With about everybody.”
“You had lunch with them together?”
“Yeah,” Suit said. “They was always buddies, even when Kimmy was into being Catholic.”
“And Debbie wasn’t,” Jesse said.
“Not so it showed. I told them I was investigating another case that had nothing to do with them, but that I needed to learn as much as I could about the swinging lifestyle.”
“And they told you,” Jesse said.
“Maybe more than I wanted to know,” Suit said.
“Cocktails with lunch?” Jesse said.
“Line of duty,” Suit said. “And a couple bottles of wine.”
“Candy is dandy,” Jesse said, “but liquor is quicker.”
“Man,” Suit said. “I never drink in the middle of the day. I barely sipped a little wine, and I had to go home and take a nap.”
“Being a lush is heavy work,” Jesse said. “What’d they tell you.”
“Well, for openers,” Suit said, “they talked about it like it was some kind of high-minded philosophy of life. The swinging lifestyle.”
“Liberated,” Jesse said.
“Yeah, ‘free of prudish’ . . . what did she say? ‘Free of prudish limitations.’ That’s what Debbie told me,” Suit said.
“Only a repressed pervert would disapprove,” Jesse said.
“Debbie says that studies show that swingers have happier relationships and more stable marriages.”
“Because they are open and loving, and there’s no surreptitious nookie going on,” Jesse said.
“Wow,” Suit said. “Surreptitious nookie.”
“I amaze myself, sometimes,” Jesse said. “How’s it work?”
“The swingers club?”
“Yep.”
“Couples only,” Suit said. “No single guys.”
“Leaves us out,” Jesse said.
“Yeah,” Suit said. “Don’t seem fair, does it?”
“How about single women?” Jesse said.
“No rules that I know of about that,” Suit said.
“Sexist bastards,” Jesse said. “So do they meet regularly?”
“They meet once a month at a club member’s home,” Suit said. “And they also have, you know, parties and cookouts and picnics, stuff like that.”
“And this is all about partners having sex with other people’s partners,” Jesse said.
“I guess,” Suit said. “I know that sometimes one partner watches while the other partner does it.”
“I wonder how they decide,” Jesse said.
“Who’s gonna do what with who?” Suit said. “Yeah, I wondered about that.”
“But you didn’t ask,” Jesse said.
“I was getting embarrassed,” Suit said.
“Cops don’t get embarrassed,” Jesse said.
“Never?” Suit said.
Jesse grinned at him.
“Hardly ever,” he said. “Debbie seems to have done most of the talking. What did Kim have to say?”
“Not much. She was kind of agreeing with Debbie, but I don’t know. She didn’t seem to have much to say about it.”
“She’s the one we should talk with,” Jesse said.
“Because she didn’t say much?”
“Be good to know why she didn’t,” Jesse said
21
JESSE SAT at a table in Daisy’s Restaurant and looked at Sunny Randall sitting across from him wearing tight jeans and a white tank top.
“Hard to carry a concealed weapon in that outfit,” Jesse said.
“This outfit is not about concealing,” Sunny said. “Gun’s in my purse.”
Jesse nodded.
“The outfit is doing its job,” Jesse said.
“Of not concealing?”
“Yes.”
“I was hoping you’d notice,” she said.
They were drinking iced tea and eating sandwiches. Sunny had a BLT. Jesse had a lobster club.
“We got an agenda on this visit?” Jesse said.
“You mean why did I come up here and have lunch with you?”
“Yes.”
“How about because you’re a white-hot stud, and I’ve missed you,” Sunny said.
“Nice answer,” Jesse said.
“It’s true. I do miss you,” Sunny said.
“Yes,” Jesse said. “I miss you, too.”
“And,” Sunny said, “I want a favor.”
Jesse nodded.
“Don’t they always,” Jesse said.
“Ohmigod, the weltschmerz,” Sunny said.
“I’m trying it out,” Jesse said. “How’s it play?”
“Sucks,” Sunny said. “Here’s what I need.”
Jesse smiled and nodded.
“You remember my friend Spike,” she said.
“Sure, big guy, beard, looks sort of like a bear.”
“That would be Spike,” Sunny said.
She opened her sandwich and picked up a slice of bacon and took a small bite off the end of it. Sunny always looked as if she’d recently stepped from the shower, combed her hair, ap-plied her makeup carefully, and dressed. There was a freshness about her that made her seem always nearly brand-new.
“He owns a restaurant in Boston,” Sunny said. “Spike’s. Near Quincy Market.”
“Clever name,” Jesse said.
“He wants to expand,” Sunny said. “And he’s looking to get a place up here.”
“Spike’s North?” Jesse said.
“Yes,” Sunny said, “in fact. How’d you know?”
“You got something really clever,” Jesse said. “You probably like to work with it.”
Sunny took a red lettuce leaf from her deconstructed sandwich and nibbled on it.
“I thought being down with the chief of police might be useful to him,” she said.
“How useful has it been for you?” Jesse said.
“More than maybe you know,” Sunny said.
They were quiet for a moment, waiting for the conversation to go to another place.
“I could put him in touch with my friend Marcy Campbell. She’s a real estate broker.”
“Good friend?” Sunny said.
“Yes.”
“With privileges?” Sunny said.
“Why do you ask?” Jesse said.
Sunny nibbled on a tomato slice. Then she put it down and patted her mouth with her napkin.
“How’s Jenn,” she said.
“Gone to New York,” Jesse said.
“To work?”
“Yes.”
“She go by herself?”
“No.”
“Man?” Sunny said.
Jesse leaned back in his chair and looked at the ceiling, as if he were stretching his neck.
After a time he said, “Of course.”
Sunny nodded. She sipped some iced tea. Jesse sat forward and smiled at her.
“How’s Richie?” Jesse said.
“I don’t exactly know,” Sunny said. “We decided to try a sabbatical from one another. I mean, you know, for God’s sake, his current wife is having a baby soon.”
Jesse nodded.
“And Rosie?”
Sunny shook her head.
“I had to put her down,” she said. “This spring.”
“Oh, God,” Jesse said. “I’m sorry.”
“I know,” Sunny said. “I’ll get past it.”
“Hard,” Jesse said.
“Very.”
He put his hand on hers on the tabletop. They sat quietly. The waitress came and asked if they were interested in dessert. They said no. She brought them the check. Jesse paid it and added a tip.
“Let’s get out of here,” Jesse said.
“And go where?” Sunny said.
“We can start with a walk on the beach,” Jesse said.
“That feels right,” Sunny said.
“It does,” Jesse said.
And they left the restaurant.
&
nbsp; 22
EDDIE COX called in.
“Jesse,” he said. “I got a home invasion. I think you need to come down here, now, and bring Molly.”
“Where,” Jesse said.
Cox gave him the address on Beach Street.
“Here I come,” Jesse said.
“Can we do the siren?” Molly said as they drove to Beach Street.
“No need,” Jesse said.
“Damn,” Molly said, and settled back in the passenger seat with her arms folded. “What are we going to?”
“Home invasion,” Jesse said. “Must be a woman involved. Cox requested you.”
“Maybe he just wanted my superior investigative skills,” Molly said.
“Maybe,” Jesse said.
Cox’s patrol car was parked on the street in front of an ordinary-looking smallish white colonial-style house on a street of smallish colonials in the south part of town, near the commuter railroad station. There was a pear tree in the front yard.
When Jesse rang the bell, Cox opened the front door and gestured them to the living room, which ran the length of the house from back to front. A woman sat on the couch, wearing jeans and a white T-shirt. She was crying.
“Kids?” Jesse said.
Molly walked over and sat down on the couch beside the woman.
“In school,” Cox said. “Husband works in Boston. He’s on his way.”
“Name?” Jesse said.
Cox glanced at his notebook.
“Dorothy Browne,” he said.
Jesse nodded and walked to the couch.
“I’m Jesse Stone, Mrs. Browne. Are you okay?”
She nodded.
“Can you tell me what happened?” Jesse said.
She nodded again. Molly sat quietly beside her. Jesse waited. Mrs. Browne gathered herself.
“What if the kids had been here,” she said.
“It’s good that they weren’t,” Jesse said.
Mrs. Browne took a couple of breaths.
“Michael went to work like always, the seven-forty train from Preston Station. I got the kids onto the school bus at eight.” She smiled very faintly. “That’s always a struggle. I cleaned up breakfast dishes, made the beds, took a shower, and dressed for the day.”
Across the room from where she sat on the couch was a small, clean fireplace, and above it a large oil painting of surf breaking over the kind of rock outcroppings that lined the coast north of Boston. She stared at it blankly as she talked. Her voice was under tight control, almost monotone.
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